Fifty-four percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association, while 38% have an unfavorable opinion. The public’s ratings of the NRA have fluctuated since first measured by Gallup in 1993 — from a low of 42% favorable in 1995 to a high of 60% in 2005.

And Congress? Their approval rate was last measured by Gallup at 21 percent.

Even the president hovers around the same rating Gallup gives the NRA. Recently Obama was rated at 56 percent by Gallup, but only a few months ago, just before winning re-election, he was below 50 percent.

So, it is interesting to see who is casting aspersions on whom.

It must also be remembered that, even as the political class and the Old Media establishment have been attacking the pro-Second Amendment group, the NRA has 4.3 million members!

Millions of Americans back the NRA with voluntary paying of dues and you can bet that millions more support the work of the NRA even though they aren’t inclined to actually formally join and pay dues.

Finally, a few statistics are important to note, here. As liberals run from TV show to radio show claiming we have a “gun crisis” both violent crime and death rates by guns have fallen and they’ve fallen at the same time that every state but one (Illinois) has passed concealed carry laws that have necessarily increased the number of guns “on the street” and in the hands of civilians.

Over the last 20 years, the firearm crime rate has dropped, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. The 1.4/1000 is the same rate as in 2004, the last year in which the “assault weapons” ban was in place. Part of this is from an overall decline in violent crime over the same period, but that doesn’t account for all of the improvement. Firearm crimes accounted for 11% of all violent crime in 1993 and 1994, but was 8% of all such crime in 2009.

The loss of even one life is nothing to easily dismiss. But “crises” are not measured in single digits. Our society is far too violent, to be sure. But to claim that we’ve arrived at a crisis is simply absurd. We do have work to do on our national psyche. But the facts state that the problem is not as bad as it was only a decade ago.

It’s not about the numbers. It’s not about the facts. It’s not about looking at the problem logically and trying to figure out the best, least disruptive solution.

It’s about emotion – pure and simple emotion. You can’t get people to accept bad decisions and bad law, you can’t get them to impulsively give up their rights through logic and facts, especially when the facts are NOT pointing towards giving up rights as improving the situation.

You CAN get them to make bad decisions based on empty emotional appeals. You CAN get them to respond to plaintive cries of “We must DO something NOW!” You can get even more out of them if you include pictures of wide-eyed children and kittens and puppies. (Works for all sorts of charities, right?)

But you CAN’T let fact-based reasoning into the argument. Because when the facts do get out – then suddenly the emotional appeals look cheap and hollow and … false.

Hank_M

Excellent comment. And an apt and accurate description of the democrat play book no matter what the subject might be.

sheeple

Its not about the numbers or the facts, its that nimrod communists (aka Demoncrats) want to disarm the public so they can enslave them

nathan hale

What… say it isn’t so…. people don’t believe the media??? The NRA provided a logical alternative, didn’t say anything to the rude protestors who interrupted them, and politely escorted them out. The media only talks about the crazy people going to gun shows and parades around the innocent kids in CT. I guarantee, if CBS would have shown picture of my kid crying, I would have been mad. All the media used those kids to sell newspaper, magazines and to get ratings on TV. Shame on the media.

The media is complicit to the lie about guns. there were 12K murders with guns last year, yet guns were used 2.3 million times for self defense. You are 200X more likely to defend yourself with a gun than get killed by one. Those aren’t NRA stats, those numbers come from the CDC and Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Lie to me once, shame on you, lie to me twice… shame on me.

Commander_Chico

It’s pretty clear that the NRA represents gun manufacturers more than gun owners when Lapierre comes up with a crackpot idea of having armed guards at every school.

So gun crime has dropped over the last 20 years. It’s also true that the USA has become a police state in the last 20 years, with checkpoints, increasing surveillance, more searches without warrants, militarized police departments, and the highest rate of incarceration in the world by far. What’s the reason crime has dropped, at what price to freedom?

I am in favor of having guns as a last resort against the state, but it seems to me that the NRA just wants to create more cops to sell more guns to the state.

herddog505

Would it help to ask you to take your meds?

Yeah, the NRA has TOTALLY been in favor of a “police state”. Why, they were leading the charge to pin the Medal of Honor on Lon Horiuchi; they’ve got a monument to Janet Reno and her tank right outside their office building. President Bush (Classic) joined the NRA because he, like Wayne LaPierre, wants more “jackboots” in the government.

/sarc

As for “representing gun manufacturers” (oh no! TEH OLIGARCHY!), the NRA certainly does, the manufacturers being one half of the equation: one can’t have a national RIFLE association without SOMEBODY building the rifles.

Or are you suggesting that the NRA is (somehow) just a publicity arm of Remington, Winchester, Federal, Bushmaster, et al, playing a con game with the goal of suckering Americans – who really don’t WANT guns – into buying them?

Commander_Chico

Open your eyes – Lapierre wants to have armed cops in every school.

What effect would that have on education? You already see school police in some places handcuffing seven-year-olds and tazing 13 year-olds for school infractions.

They just want to sell more guns, don’t care if it’s to citizens or the state.

herddog505

Has LaPierre advocated in the past for armed guards in schools? (I honestly don’t know) Is he the only one who has done so? Are armed guards a rarity, or have we not had them for years across the country? And are the guards typically not sheriffs deputies or city police who would be armed in any event? By the way: do you advocate DISarming American police officers?

This whole “the NRA wants a police state!” argument is, frankly, ridiculous. If you want to gripe about a police state – and, believe me, I am with you on that – then tell me who is REALLY behind it in this case: the NRA that wants Americans to continue to be armed, or the gungrabbers who want, ultimately, to give the BATFEIEIO the power to conduct no-knock raids to get those sooper-deadly assault weapons and high-cap magazines?

As for your justifiable complaints about “handcuffing seven-year-olds and tazing 13 year-olds for school infractions” (again, with you on that), then I suggest that the target of your ire should NOT be the NRA, but rather the school and police officials who make this sort of excessive use of force a matter of policy.

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

It is a ridiculous argument. However, it provokes a knee-jerk emotional reaction in folks who aren’t familiar with facts – which is, sadly, a lot of the population.

Watch the evening news. Pretty much everything they choose to present is framed in the most emotional way possible, and repeated time after time. The old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” still holds true – they want the viewers, and you’re not going to get them if you don’t appeal to their insecurities. You don’t get repeat viewers by assuring them there’s no real threat TO THEM from an incident where a couple of gang-bangers settled a score with a rival group – you get them by telling them there’s a horrible threat to their lives and they’ll be able to find out more at 11.

Vagabond661

You mean like this:

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

More like this sort,

Commander_Chico

It is my contention that power corrupts. The more cops, the more police abuse. It is a fine balance, I don’t think the threat justifies Lapierre’s proposal, particularly given the almost-statistical certainty that some loser who got hired as kindergarten cop would either kill a kid accidentally or go postal himself.

Having cops in every school would also contribute to indoctrinating children into an authoritarian mindset.

You have to think of the several dimensions of things like this.

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

” I don’t think the threat justifies …”

If it doesn’t justify that – then it doesn’t justify putting even more restrictions on handgun and rifle ownership of the law-abiding.

Commander_Chico

I agree.

Vagabond661

We expect to see armed guards at public events now. It’s a fact of life unfortunately. No doubt there were a ton of armed guards at Times Square for the New Year’s celebration. Didn’t seem to bother the people there from what I could see. Same for the Rose Parade. All kinds of security there. People still lined the streets.

“particularly given the almost-statistical certainty that some loser who got hired as kindergarten cop would either kill a kid accidentally or go postal himself.” It’s a little fatalistic to think this with no proof. Then on the other hand, we are talking about a government institution.

The school that Gregory sends his kids to doesn’t have old geezer there. Maybe the bigger solution is to privatize the schools and then the consumers would have more say so in things like security personnel. You know, like Gregory.

Vagabond661

What effect would it have on education? Ask the kids and/or teachers who are afraid of going to school because their classmates was gunned down by a crazed looney.

You don’t question what effect armed guards would have at a football game, Or at airports. You don’t question the effect of armed guards around all those politicians.

Selling guns? I question the load of crap you are selling.

herddog505

I understand wanting to have fewer armed personnel around; it would be much better if we could go back to those thrilling, bucolic days of yesteryear when we didn’t need cops in schools, we didn’t need (or think we needed) TSA, we didn’t need umpteen armed federal agencies to fight the War on Drugs / Terror / Guns / Loonies / People Who Build On Wetlands.

But this business of “the NRA wants a police state so their corporate masters can sell guns!” is… ludicrous? Silly? Imbecile? All of the above?

Vagabond661

We all wish we could return to that simpler time. In the house I grew up in, we didn’t lock our doors when we left. Same for the cars. Come Saturday morning, we hopped on our bikes and was gone most of the day. No cell phones, no internet, no worries.

Sam Donaldson was right in a sense. This isn’t my country anymore. My country was saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school. My country was my dad teaching me how to shoot a .22 rifle. My country was “Gunsmoke”, “Carol Burnett Show” and “Mission Impossible”.

Pride in our work, pride in our school, pride in our towns. You are mocked if express those sentiments. You are a fool if you are not collecting unemployment and got a free Obamaphone. No respect. None for themselves. None for anyone else.

You will find a call to put armed guards in every school and that these guards would come from a number of sources

Now, the National Rifle Association knows that there are millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters and rescue personnel; and an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every school. We can deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America’s schools safer — relying on the brave men and women of America’s police force.

Given the context “America’s police force” refers not to the actual police but the various people described above.

But Chico is apparently on some drug fueled psychotic bender. Little of what he is saying squares with reality.

Commander_Chico

It is legally impossible to “deploy” amateur vigilantes of whatever qualification into schools. It is a question of legal authority and agency.

herddog505

1. The police are the public and the public are the police.

— Ascribed to Robert Peel, considered to be the “Father of Modern Policing”. It would be well for Americans to re-familiarize themselves with his principles as he clearly understood the need for the police to have the approval of the public and not be a brute squad hired to keep them in line.

Now, I will admit that Peel apparently did not have in mind that every citizen should have police powers or act as self-appointed peace officers. Nevertheless, the concept that the mass of the citizenry is ultimately responsible for the maintenance law and order by passing sensible laws, obeying those laws, and creating police agencies, courts, etc. to uphold those laws, it quite clear. In the absence of sufficient numbers of police officers, it is reasonable to assume that citizens can help fill the gap.

2. There is ample legal and cultural precedent in the United States for private citizens to be temporarily deputized to help keep the peace. In such a case, they are by definition NOT “vigilantes”. I refer to the common law concept of posse comitatus, which still exists in many (if not most) of the several states.

I expect that, in many places in the United States, the sheriff or chief of police would find considerable cooperation from well-armed and determined citizens if he had to call upon them to help him deal with an emergency. Is it such a stretch to imagine that citizens – parents – would not be willing to assist the police in guarding our children? And, given the success of the concealed carry laws, is it also a stretch to imagine that the police could conduct background checks and sufficient training to turn these “citizen deputies” into a highly effective deterent to loons and hoodlums?

Incidentally, don’t you think that a more active participation by citizens in keeping the peace would not only allow for smaller police departments but also help reduce the odds of excessive use of police power?

Finally, I suggest that the problem is NOT having armed officers in the schools, but rather the uses to which those officers are put. If they are there to keep the peace and protect the lives of the students and faculty, that’s one thing. If they are there to randomly search lockers and students, to arrest kids for fistfights, or generally be the heavy arm of the law, that’s something else.

jim_m

So you are claiming here that private security is illegal in any form anywhere. Because that is what you are saying. You are also claiming that CCW holders using their weapons to defend themselves or others is illegal in every situation.

DO you even bother to think about what you say? It is not “legally impossible” to put non police officers in schools to protect the children. Your characterization of “amateur vigilantes” is a straw man.

Commander_Chico

When the state is paying armed security, they are effectively state agents or “special police officers.”

You could not just have a program directed by the state to make sure that armed people were in every school without the program being the state’s responsibility and under its authority.

I just don’t see what is wrong with armed guards in a school. Liberals will whine and bark about it but never seem to come down to a real reason.

Don’t we want to protect our children?

Do you think the effect armed guards would have on education is worse then the effect of a school shooting?

jim_m

It’s also true that the USA has become a police state in the last 20 years, with checkpoints, increasing surveillance, more searches without warrants, militarized police departments, and the highest rate of incarceration in the world by far.

Checkpoints? Really? I have never been stopped by any checkpoints. Not only have I never been stopped, I’ve never even seen one. Care to pony up some evidence that we have check points stopping citizens at random as you imply?

Yes we do have surveillance in major cities with cameras etc. However some cameras, like red light cameras and speed careras are one their way out as people have demonstrated that red light cameras are not about safety but about revenue and are set up to produce revenue at the cost of safety. Still, this does not amount to a police state where the police are taping phones and bugging houses indiscriminately.

Police departments have SWAT teams etc. However, having one section of the department that uses these weapons and tactics does not make the entire department a military force.

I’ll grant you the incarceration rate. But you are going to tell me that these people are wrongly convicted? Otherwise what is your point?

herddog505

Actually, Oleg Volk has complained about checkpoints in Tennessee (oh, how low have the descendents of John Sevier and Davy Crockett fallen that they put up with this!):

Do we really, really need to have roadblocks and checkpoints as part of the “War on Drunk Drivers”?

As for the “police state”, I am much concerned with the proliferation of SWAT teams (even the friggin’ Dept. of Education apparently has one!) and especially the policy of no-knock raids. I understand that there are occasions when the police have to go after very heavily-armed and desperate hoodlums, and I in no way want the police to be outgunned. On the other hand, do the police REALLY need to kick in doors and shoot family pets or people because somebody had some weed? And what if they kick in the wrong door? “Oh, gee whiz, we’re sorry your house has been trashed, your dog is dead, and your family has been terrorized. Well, better luck next time!”

There’s a line between upholding the law and dealing with vicious criminals on the one hand and treating the entire populace as potential criminals who have to be groped, X-rayed, surveilled, etc., on the other. There’s also a line between having sensible laws to keep the peace and such a proliferation of laws that every citizen is in danger of breaking one or more in the course of his daily life. We have, I think, gone over both lines.

jim_m

I agree that the proliferation of SWAT teams (nearly every government agency now has them) is a problem and the abuse of no knock raids is a scandal. There should be sharp restrictions on no knock raids.

I would further say that the TSA should be abolished and forfeiture laws should all be rolled back.

However, these things stop far short of a police state and Chica is simply trying to blow a lot of smoke to cover up the fact that he is blaming the NRA, an institution which has consistently lobbied for 2nd amendment rights, for conspiring to infringe upon the civil liberties of Americans. In fact he is accusing the NRA of plotting with gun manufacturers to eliminate our 2nd amendment rights. It’s delusional.

herddog505

I think it’s reflexive liberalism: “NRA = conservative, therefore NRA = evil puppets”, liberals taking it for granted that ANY conservative organization is merely a front for TEH OLIGARCHY. At least we can give him credit for not wanting to ban guns; though he may think that the NRA is nothing but a front for TEH OLIGARCHY, at least he understands what the right to keep and bear arms, at its root, is all about.

I will also give him credit (mostly because I agree!) that we’re on a slippery slope towards police state. It isn’t here yet, but many of the components are in place. Politicians on both sides have done a good job of establishing bogeymen to justify a “war” on this or that, and hence their partisans are willing to go along for the ride. We on the right want to fight terrorists and drug pushers, so we’ll look the other way when Uncle Sam (ahem) makes a mistake or goes a bit too far in squashing some cartel or terrorist cell. Lefties hate the Catholic Church and NRA, so they don’t mind trashing the Constitution to stick it to those groups.

I must say that the recent (only verbal… so far) war on gun owners has been a wake-up call for me. We need to be very careful about demonizing our opponents, and DAMNED careful about what measures we take against them. It’s one thing to fight in the arena of politics; it’s another to start talking about legal or even more… um… direct actions. This is why posting the personal information about newspaper employees bothers me: two wrongs don’t make a right. What will we do if one of those people gets hurt by an overly-zealous RKBA proponent (and I make no doubt that they’re out there)? Hell, what will we do if one of them gets hurt by some random thug? The left will be more than happy to start – as they did in the wake of the Tucson shooting – “targets” and “violent rhetoric”.

Make sure you read the reviews. There are too many good ones to post a selection.

OK I’ll post this from the comments: “I’m still waiting for the Playmobil Holding Cell and Interrogation Room combo playkit. John Yoo says it’s a “must-have”! :

herddog505

LOL!

914

By the time it gets to be a last resort its too late. They are picking away at all our liberty’s at an accelerated rate.

As for The NRA, whatever the motives? They are not stealing wealth, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.. That’s the scoundrels in Washington.

jim_m

It’s pretty clear that the NRA represents gun manufacturers more than gun owners

Chico is now spouting made up lefty conspiracy theory. The NRA has 4.3 Million members. Membership fees are between $25 and $35 per year. That means that the NRA makes between $107.5 and $150.5 Million on annual dues. So it probably makes 3/4 of its operating budget on individual member dues.

Your nut case conspiracy theory requires that the NRA would have to abandon its funding base and that its lobbying activity for the past several decades to preserve and advance gun owner rights was just a front. Your theory requires that the NRA would throw over 3/4 of its financing in favor of a minority interest group that would over the long term provided dwindling returns.

You really are seriously detached from reality.

http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

And once again – it doesn’t matter about the facts.

What matters is how they can be emotionally charged to fit a particular agenda.

What’s the reason crime has dropped? It depends on who you talk to. The Freakanomics folks attribute the drop to abortion. The folks in Kennesaw, GA think it’s because of their law mandating each house have a gun and ammunition – though there’s no teeth IN that law to punish those that don’t, how many criminals will take the chance that the house they pick WON’T have an immediate armed response?

The folks who push licensed CCW point how in areas where it’s allowed crime goes DOWN, and where guns are prohibited crime goes UP. I’m sure there’s no actual correlation on that, though. /sarc

Could it be that criminals can actually be rational at times, and figure that it’s not worth the cost of their lives or unventilated skins to attack when their victims MIGHT be armed?

Could it be they’d rather go where they KNOW the victims will be unarmed?

Nah – there’s no way a criminal will think like that. Which is why you see them regularly robbing folks at gun shops during business hours, and attempting mass killings at police stations.

Well – actually, you don’t.

I do think Chico has a point, though – we need to de-militarize police departments and government agencies.